


Luck and Loyalties

by tielan



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 22:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7820065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is nothing as simple as falling in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Luck and Loyalties

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).



 Sometimes it seems unthinkable to Bucky that he’s counted a hero: the Winter Soldier – the most wanted criminal in the world – turned Avenger.

Steve tells him that it doesn’t count because it wasn’t his choice. And maybe it wasn’t his choice, but it matters that he did what he did. His hands choked the life out of Howard and Maria Stark, his hands wielded the gun that shot Nick Fury, his hands punched and clawed and tore at Romanoff and Carter and Stark and Wilson and T’Challa, even when he didn’t know who he was or what he was doing.

Yes, he has to move on, keep going, put it behind him. But the people his victims left behind, mourning their deaths, their lives irrevocably scarred? They don’t get to put it behind them, so why should he?

In his head, he hears Zemo’s bitterness, sharp as the knife of knowledge with which he gutted Bucky and Howard’s son.

_And the Avengers went home._

Sometimes he thinks that Steve doesn’t get it – that his buddy _can’t_ comprehend the magnitude of what Bucky’s done, except as it relates to Bucky.

Sometimes he wonders if anyone does.

 

 

“Not everyone is delighted that the Avengers are back,” Hill informs him a week after the Avengers return to the facility in upstate New York. “Or with your presence on the team.”

Bucky knows. He’s been keeping abreast of the news – they all do. After the Accords came out of nowhere, the Avengers are wary of politics and governments, and Steve swore he was never going to be taken by surprise again.

“You got any news, Hill, or just olds?”

Sea-green eyes flick heavenwards in exasperation. “The news is that there’s an opportunity for you to improve your profile.”

Her tone suggests he’s not going to like whatever the suggestion is. “How many babies do I have to kiss?”

 

 

_Shave and a haircut? Two bits!_

“Well, internationally wanted assassin or not, you’re worse than my oldest son when it comes to haircuts,” comments his hairdresser as she combs and trims hair. ‘Laura’ glances up at the mirror, her gaze travelling out the bathroom door to where Hill is leaning against the desk, flipping through a motorcycle magazine. “Maria, I dread what’s going through that head of yours, but if you think I’m going to shave him, too...”

Hill’s mouth quirks as she looks up. “Do you really think he’d let anyone get a flat razor near his throat?”

Laura’s mouth twitches. Her eyes meet Bucky’s in the mirror and while she doesn’t quite blush, the way she drops her gaze suggests that ‘shaving’ in the past has probably led to places he doesn’t want to go with her. At least, not if he wants to avoid being killed by a jealous husband.

“Well,” she says, tilting his head from side to side so she can see the job she’s done, “you present less like a hobo-come-sociopathic-killer, now, and more like a good-looking man.”

The noise from out in the room might be a choked laugh.

 

 

How long has it been since he wore the uniform?

Okay, how long has it been since he wore the uniform _as himself_ and not as the Winter Soldier masquerading as a US Army soldier in order to get close enough to kill someone?

And with all the proper medals, too – the ones assigned post-mortem to Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.

They should be burning a hole in his chest, all the way through to his heart.

But Carol Danvers just whistles when she sees him. “Wow. Decorated much? Shit. Some of these are _big_. And, uh, I haven’t seen one of these on anyone younger than seventy _._ ” Then she tilts her head to the side and her grin grows mischievous. “I guess you _are_ old, though you and Steve sure don’t look it.”

“Carol.” Hill strides in, brisk and professional in a sleeveless navy dress that’s somewhere between business and cocktail, made of some material that skims her curves with sleek elegance. “I thought I heard your dulcet tones. Romanoff says you’ve been following the Wangaratta situation. Can we work jurisdiction?”

“No. The local government isn’t going to let anyone in – and there’s some kind of interference field around it. I think this time we might actually have to push co-operation.”

“I _hate_ co-operating.” Hill huffs, almost theatrically. “Fine. Start the wheels of bureaucratic nicey-nicey. I’ll put Sharon on it, and she can drag Rogers along as her plus-one.”

Danvers’ hoot of laughter rings through the room. “Rogers as a WAG? Hill, that’s _brilliant._ ”

“Well, he’s pretty enough.” Her glance over Bucky is largely critical, with only a touch of appreciative. “So are you, I guess.”

“You’re so kind,” he comments lightly.

 

 

Pretty or not, his job is to look harmless. That’s his brief from Hill, and while Bucky’s pride objects to being relegated to WAG, he figures at least he can reassure Steve that it’s not all bad. There’s food and beer and dames galore, and nobody expects him to do more than small talk.

Then again, maybe they’re just scared he might kill them with a _hors d'oeuvre_ and a cocktail stick?

Bucky thinks he’s doing okay when a young woman – late twenties, brown eyes, auburn hair, annoying giggle – swoops down on them. Or, more specifically, on Hill.

“My God, Maria, sweetheart, it’s been too long!” Air kisses, both cheeks. “And you brought me such a gorgeous present!”

She flings herself on Bucky, her scarlet-nailed hands artfully poised on his shoulder and chest as she tilts her head, like she’s a pin-up girl and he’s her background. It takes all his instincts not to hurl her away, but maybe something of the struggles shows in his face, because Maria pokes the woman in the shoulder.

“Don’t molest him in view of everyone, Velysia. And have some respect. This is Sergeant Barnes, of the Howling Commandos and a national hero.”

“To say nothing of a wanted man.” Velysia eyes him up and down. “I can see why.”

The woman has no self-preservation; that, or she honestly thinks that this is funny. Bucky shoots Maria a glare that he can only wish was deadly, then smiles and plays it polite and harmless. “Ma’am. In the end, I’m just a soldier.”

“But not just _any_ soldier – the _Winter—_ ”

With a resounding crack, the glass windows splinter inwards, and the political hob-nob goes all to hell.

 

 

In the aftermath of the attempted coup, Bucky is on high alert.

It’s not a comfortable feeling, to be watching everyone – and to know that everyone is watching him. After all, he and Hill took out nine of the mercenary team who’d been sent to carry out the attempt at assassination-and-kidnapping before the remaining security guards even got their act together and started firing.

And it burns his ass that Hill stabbed a man in the eye with the broken stem of a cocktail glass before she relieved him of his weapon and started taking out the assassins more conventionally, but everyone is watching _him_ like _he’s_ the one who might go off the rails. Meanwhile, the other attendees of the evening are having breakdowns, or furiously throwing their weight around, but she’s an island of calm in the middle of a storm as she gives her statement to the FBI.

By the time the FBI lets them go, Bucky’s had a lot of time to think about what happened here tonight.

But he waits until the limousine door closes behind them.

“Did you plan tonight?”

She hesitates before answering, and that’s answer enough. “Intel indicated that the Russians are trying to consolidate again – the Eastern European bloc is particularly vulnerable right now. An assassination in the right place and right time could overturn a lot of the stability in the region.”

“And did your Intel pinpoint the time and place that the mercenary group would hit?”

“No.” Her eyes aren’t blue in this light, just an opaque darkness. “But it was a reasonable guess.”

“So you didn’t just take me along to improve my profile, did you?”

“No, but it was a nice bonus.” Impatience seeps into her voice. “It doesn’t have to be an either-or proposition, Barnes.”

“That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is the problem?”

“You didn’t tell me what was going on – you just put me in the firing line with the expectation that I’d react. Which I did. However, I object to being used as an unwitting accomplice.”

He had enough of that with HYDRA, and while nobody accuses Hill of being HYDRA, she was still very much S.H.I.E.L.D – where HYDRA hid for seventy years.

“I’m sorry.” The apology is prompt. She opens her mouth, pauses, plunges on. “Would you have agreed to be used as a _witting_ accomplice?”

Bucky isn’t sure. It’s a bad time to ask this – edgy and angry and with too many memories battering at his psyche right now. He’s not sure he’s capable of rationalising any decision he makes at this moment, but he tries. “Maybe. But at least I’d have the choice.”

 

 

The thing is that he doesn’t quite know what to make of Hill.

Before and during the war, women were for charming, pleasing, teasing, and bedding. Since then, dealing with women has been…complicated. One doesn’t get a lot of experience at chit-chat when the primary focus of your existence is working out how best to kill someone.

Since he got deprogrammed, there’ve been various women he’s interacted with. The Wakandans seemed nice, but most of them regarded him as an intriguing problem to solve (the scientists), or a potential threat to neutralise (the Dora Milaje).

There’s Romanoff, with whom he has a history of sorts based on the fact that they were both programmed to kill in the same circles, and at least once, each other. Awkward doesn’t even _begin_ to describe it.

There’s Carter – the young blonde one – who’s friendly but also a little cool with what Bucky suspects may be a jealousy factor. Which is weird because she and Wilson are tight, and Wilson’s the one Steve goes to when he’s roughing things out.

Van Dyne looks at him like she’s not sure he’s tame, Danvers just seems to assume he is, while Maximoff’s cool gaze says she knows perfectly well he’s not. But then Captain Marvel has never known him as anything but Bucky Barnes and the stories about the Winter Soldier are leavened by Steve’s absolute trust in him; and the Scarlet Witch can blow his mind out like a candle, so she has no reason to treat him with kid gloves.

Hill knows exactly what he’s capable of. She’s seen it, witnessed it, lived it - it’s her job, after all. Still, she doesn’t tread on eggshells around him, and it seems she’s not going to hesitate to use him for world security.

Which brings Bucky to the crucial question.

 

 

He drops into the seat opposite her in the private lounge. “Why?”

She doesn’t look up from the files she’s perusing. “Because.”

“Why do you do it?”

“‘ _It_ ’ being…?”

“Managing the Avengers.”

“Someone has to.”

“But you choose to.”

“We can’t all be heroes, because someone has to clean up behind them when the ticker-tape parade has gone by.”

Bucky doesn’t recognise the quotation but it doesn’t sound quite right. He stares at her, and after a few more seconds – quite deliberately, he thinks – she looks up, an oddly quirked smile on her lips.

“Does it matter why?”

“It did in HYDRA.”

She tilts her head in acknowledgement of the point.

“The world is very large, and people are very small. And there are a lot of them that can’t fight the bad guys – they don’t have the skill or ability, they don’t have the training, and they don’t have the resources to defend themselves against aliens or megalomaniacs. All they can do is watch the ticker tape parade go by and hope that the people they’re cheering are heroes.” She shrugs. “I can do a little more – help things along, smooth the way forward, clean up the mess behind.”

“Collecting scrap.”

“Hm?”

“Nothing,” Bucky murmurs, thinking of Steve. _I got no right to do any less._

And yet, she’s always been there – day and night, mission after mission, gathering the intel, managing the aftermath. It’s a thankless job, with none of the accolades of being an Avenger or even the advantages of being the plus-one of an Avenger, just the duty.

She’s got grit, that’s for sure.

 

 

“Can you do it?”

She’s brought him the intel, the target, the mission. She’s done it on the QT. That, in itself, is enough to raise Bucky’s hackles. But there’s something about the way she’s sitting, the way she’s waiting…

“You really want this guy.”

Her lips press together. “He’s been evading the law for years now – if he had a rap sheet it would be an encyclopaedia. But what we want him for is chemical warfare.”

Bucky lifts an eyebrow, questioning, then pauses as she pulls up the pictures. Faces. Limbs. Genitals. People. _Children_.

“And nobody’s been able to get him before?”

“No.”

He wishes he didn’t have to ask the next question. “Is this personal, Hill? Truth,” he warns when he sees her hesitate.

This time she’s more deliberate about pulling up the images. The men and women in this one aren’t chemically mutilated, but they’re still dead, their blood smeared across the floor where they were dragged into a heap. And that’s not counting the man pinned to the wall with metal stakes bloody in his shoulders and thighs, the rounded heads of the stakes gleaming grimly in the backlighting of the stylised eagle of the S.H.I.E.L.D logo on the wall.

“Will Ehlner was in charge of the Damascus office back in 2009. Ten years before that, he’d managed the extraction of our guy’s girlfriend and daughter when they appealed for sanctuary. We were hoping their intel would be enough to bring him down by the law, but it wasn’t. They went into protection, Will got a promotion.”

And Will got dead.

Bucky notes the use of the first name, looks at the pinched corners of her mouth, the bleakness in her eyes. “You found them.”

“I’d had a call from a contact in South-East Asia and went to check out a tip. I came back to this.” She looks him in the eye. “Yes, it’s personal. But that doesn’t mean it’s not important. This is a pattern for him – they call him the Keyser Soze of Chemical Weaponry.” At his blank look, she explains, “He carries grudges. And the Avengers took out his labs two months ago – the Leipzig mission.”

Bucky looks through the briefing again, page by page. He calculates what he’d have to do, how he’d do it, the parameters of the mission. And Hill waits for him make the call. He’s not a killing machine anymore. Still, there’s a part of him that can still hear Alexander Pierce, _I need you to do this one last thing..._

In spite of the phrasing, Pierce didn’t make requests.

Maria has.

_It’s personal; that doesn’t mean it’s not important._

And if he doesn’t do it, then he has a feeling she’ll just try it herself. And probably get herself killed, because as good as she is, she’s still not Winter Soldier good.

“Are you on his radar?”

“Does it matter?”

It matters when the thought of her shoved back against a wall with a metal spike in her shoulder – or worse, locked in one of the ‘experimental test chambers’ the guy uses to sample his chemical weaponry while her skin peels from her flesh – sends a cold shudder down his spine that nevertheless balls hot in his gut.

Bucky hands back the folder. “I’ll do it.”

 

 

There are nights when he wakes from remembered mission, panting and frantic in the darkness, haunted by the fading light in the eyes of everyone he ever killed.

The Winter Soldier didn’t remember; he couldn’t.

Sometimes it feels like Bucky Barnes can do nothing _but_ remember.

Cold – always the cold. Blood on his hands, on their clothing, on their surroundings. Tears, weeping, begging, pleading— Sometimes there was defiance; sometimes the cold, calm acknowledgement that death was coming. Too often, they never saw him, never looked him in the eye. Yet he remembers their faces as they turned to loved ones, looked to colleagues, grinned, or fumed, and once, paused in the doorway and looked directly at him.

She had blue eyes and brown hair, and her dress showed off the trimness of her figure – right before he pulled the trigger—Maria collapses, blood-spatter— Her expression is horrified as she bends over the dying man, and the Secret Service move to make a wall of bodies – not that it matters anymore— She screams as the knife slides into her shoulder, slicing muscle and bone, tendon and ligament, and her hands claw at his hand, at his chest, as Pierce demands answers in brusque, irritated tones—

Bucky yanks himself out of his nightmares, scrabbling at the bedclothes. He can’t breathe – not until he’s out in the warm summer air of the balcony, his hands gripping the rail. There’s fresh foliage on the breeze, the scent of churned dirt from the fields beyond, but it’s not enough to reassure him

He doesn’t think about what propels him out of his room, the nagging ache in his belly that needs to be sure, no matter how stupid his head tells him he’s being—

It doesn’t occur to him that she might not be in the facility until he’s moving through the common room on silent feet, frowning at the television which someone’s left on—

He pauses, listening beneath the murmur of the television, then peers over the back of the couch. The tablet has fallen from her hand which lies palm up, fingers gently curled. Dark hair wisps loose from the ponytail, curling around the ivory pale of her face, blue eyes are shuttered by sweeping lashes, and she lies like someone dead.

Bucky can’t hear her breathing, he can only hear the tattoo of his heart drumming away, while the woman in his not-dreams still screams, and begs, and pleads in Maria’s voice. Then Maria’s chest rises, falls and the screaming in his head falls silent, leaving only a ringing emptiness behind his eyes, a twisting pain in his belly.

His legs won’t hold him up, so he sinks to the floor. Somehow, his forehead is pressed against the back of the lounge where she’s sleeping. She’s just sleeping, not dead by his hand like the others.

Terror wells up in him. He puts everything he has into controlling it, a monster that needs to be shoved back into the closet from whence it came.

He doesn’t dare let it loose.

 

 

Bucky walks into the common kitchen the next morning and finds Maria frying eggs and bacon on the stove, in a slim and slightly worn tracksuit, preparing breakfast with all the keen intensity that she usually brings to world security. Maximoff watches him over the rim of her mug of tea, while Wilson is trying to cozen seconds.

“You can fight Barnes for it,” Hill is saying.

“Yeah, not gonna try that.” Sam grins at Barnes, who just grunts. “Someone’s a merry little sunshine this morning”

Bucky’s not really in a space to converse before he gets some coffee in him this morning, so he doesn’t respond to this.

Hill indicates the plate of eggs and bacon. “That’s yours. Pick your own toast – the cheap and awful stuff is in the breadbox.”

“Not all of us can afford your taste in artisan bread,” Sam comments, folding his arms as he leans one hip against the counter and grins at her roll of the eyes.

Is it necessary for Wilson to flirt with her like that? Bucky scowls as he gulps down his first mouthful of coffee. “What are you doing here this early?”

“Uh, mission? 0800 hours? Probably why Maria’s doing domestic this morning.” The dark head tilts. “You’re really not awake yet, are you?”

Maria regards him with a faintly frowning look as more bacon and more eggs fry in the pan. It’s professional concern, Bucky tells himself, nothing more. He manages a shrug. “I’ll get there. Thanks for the breakfast.”

“If you’re not fully together, Barnes—”

“I’ll be fine. Just a rough night.”

She stares at him a moment longer, then nods, before she turns back to the stove. “Let me know if you need out. There’s no need to push yourself; it’s not the end of the world.”

 

 

Bucky remembers falling in love when he was young – the wild rush of delight and pleasure when she smiled, the thunder of his heart as dark eyes looked his way, the dreams of her skin all hot and smooth and sweet against his.

This isn’t like that.

Loyalty came easy for Bucky back in the day, even if it needed to be earned. Steve earned it within a few hours of their first meeting as kids in a tough neighborhood, while the Howling Commandos earned it in the Red Skull’s prisons, doing their best to shield and shelter where they could.

It’s more complicated now.

It’s the knowledge that he’s an asset, yes, but also a person with his own judgement. That she’s willing to put him in the category of people she trusts to do what’s right. That he’s the Winter Soldier, yes, but also Bucky Barnes. It’s a distinction that others don’t always get. Most people see the thing he became and can’t find the man he is behind the Soldier, while Steve can only see the man he was and does his best to ignore the monster Bucky became.

Maria makes it clear that what he did in the past is still on his account, but if she’s going to use what he learned, what he is – with his own permission, of course – she’s not going to hold him responsible for it. Man and Monster and Bucky Barnes, whole.

This is nothing as simple as falling in love.

He just wishes it could be.

 

 

They’re in international airspace before Sam breaks the silence. “So, is it the ice?”

Bucky glances at Steve who turns from the HUD and shrugs. He’s got no idea. Yet Sam’s expression is distinctly wicked.

“The ice?”

“The inability to talk to women.” He indicates Steve. “Him and Carter, you and Hill... The ice...”

Steve looks sharply at Bucky. “You’re dating Maria?”

“No.” The denial comes easily. Making it stick with these two is much more difficult. “She’s not interested.”

Sam is looking at Steve, so Bucky looks too – and sees the slight pinch at the corners of his buddy’s mouth. His stomach curdles. “You and Hill were...involved?”

“No. We became friends while I was looking for you.” Steve shrugs, although his mouth is set in that little twist that suggests an uncomfortable memory. “I asked her to dinner at one point, but she wasn’t able to go at the time and she wouldn’t take a raincheck.”

“But you were interested.”

“I’m not carrying a torch,” Steve says, a little sharply. “Maria’s a friend. That’s enough for me.” There’s a seriousness in Steve’s gaze as he looks at Bucky. “It never went anywhere, Buck. She didn’t want me.”

It’s intended to be reassuring, Bucky supposes later as they pick their way through basalt canyons, listening to the echoes of dust and rockfall, and the scuttle of something rather more dangerous than small rodents. But as the chill wind whines in his ears, he thinks that if Maria rejected Captain America, then why would she be interested in the Winter Soldier?

 

 

Bucky doesn’t mope. He’s a trained operative, after all, and there’s a job to be done.

He starts looking for ways to see that smile more often. But flowers are out of place, jewellery isn’t her style and a bit personal these days besides, and she didn’t accept Steve’s invitation to dinner, so why should she accept Bucky’s?

Still, there’s a pleasure in giving satisfaction, in the approving nod Maria gives him when they get back from this mission.

So he finds himself making sure that everything is set to rights after missions – equipment away, utilities sorted, reports filed.

He sits with her and discusses the missions, the news, the weather, politics, current affairs, and gossip.

He keeps an eye on her time, making sure she’s having something to eat, even if it’s pizza; that she takes a break, even if he has to engineer a situation to get her attention; that if she falls asleep on the common room couch, that she’s covered over, even if it’s only a throw.

And he nearly makes a fool of himself the day she hands him two prime tickets to a ballgame – the third game of the World series – and he nearly invites her to come with him. Only the realisation that the ballgame falls on the same night as her monthly ‘catch-up’ with Pepper Potts stops him, and he takes Steve instead.

It’s almost like old times – except for the part where they’re trying not to be recognised.

 

 

“You do know that I don’t actually need looking after,” she says one day when he sets bowl of curry down in front of her.

“When did you last eat?”

“Five minutes ago.”

“When did you last eat something that wasn’t kept in your drawer?”

There is nobody else in the universe who can give the impression of rolling her eyes simply by blinking. “You didn’t ask where it was _kept_.” But Maria pulls the bowl over with a long-suffering sigh. “All right.”

While she’s eating, he regales her with the latest tale of Wilson’s ongoing ‘personality disagreements’ with Carol Danvers, the climax of which makes her choke on the curry halfway through.

“Trying to kill me,” she manages when she can breathe again.

It’s said lightly, but Bucky can’t quite keep from the grim quiver of recollection that Pierce really _did_ want her dead, and the only thing that kept him from sending Bucky after her was that Fury had his eye on her, and Pierce didn’t want Fury looking too closely into things before Insight went live.

He starts to head back around the table, then pauses as she touches his arm. The contact is...unexpected, to say the least. Hill doesn’t reach for him – for any of the Avengers, really.

“You weren’t given the order,” she reminds him.

Bucky looks at her and can visualise her face in the scope, under his fists, above his metal hand as he chokes her to death. “But if they had given the order, I’d have done it.”

“Because you couldn’t fight what they’d done to you. It was coercion, not choice.”

“Cold comfort to my victims.”

“Yes,” she says reflectively. “But they’re dead, and you’re not. And I wasn’t one of them.”

He looks at her and she looks back, and he’s glad of it.

 

 

There’s a mission – this one featuring a mad scientist and a weapon that was used against one of Maria’s friends a couple of years back.

“Personal, again?” Bucky asks when the others have headed off to the Quinjet.

Her eyes are steady and grim as she gathers her things. “After a while all of it’s personal, Barnes. And it’s still necessary.” When he doesn’t head out, her eyes narrow. “Don’t you have a plane to catch? What’s up?”

A little piece of madness, perhaps. He’s been circling around this idea for weeks now, never quite gathering the courage – or interrupted or delayed or deterred each time. But now...

“I’m considering whether to ask you for a kiss for luck.”

She stares at him for a long moment, then pink springs into her cheek. “A kiss?”

“For luck.” Bucky tries to look charming and hopeful. From the way she eyes him, he has a feeling he’s coming across more as manic and stalkery.

Then she snorts and shakes her head. “Don’t push yours, Barnes. Go.”

He goes, and doesn’t think too much about the fact that she just dismissed him. There’s a mission to complete after all. Although, fifteen hours later, mission completed, tired and adrenalised, it all rushes back in on him, and he has to grip his hands together to stop them shaking.

“You okay?” Wilson nudges his shoulder, and he nods.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t have to say more; his memories are not ones that he cares to share with the class. Even the recent ones where he made an idiot of himself, and probably stepped over a line he shouldn’t have. Stupid!

Steve falls in beside him as they come off the Quinjet. “Anything you want to tell me?”

“Anything you think I should have told you?”

“I’m just checking, okay?” Steve glances around as heels click their way down the corridor. “Maria. Is it me or him you want words with?”

“Him, now; you, later. But I’ve got Danvers up in the lounge, so you’d better mediate between her and Wilson before I go up there and shoot them both. Or we find them fucking on the couch like a college hook-up.”

Steve laughs. “Going.” He grips Bucky’s shoulder on the way past, and Bucky lifts his chin and prepares to take his lumps.

“If this is about what I said before—”

“It is, and it isn’t.” Maria tucks a wisp of hair behind her ear, the gesture endearingly self-conscious. Then she exhales hard, rises up on her toes, and brushes her mouth over Bucky’s. His right hand is cupping her head before he realises he’s moved, because she’s fierce fire and hot gunmetal beneath the cool steel of her exterior, and if he has to go out burning, this is the only way he wants to do it—

She breaks the kiss with a little tilt of her head, and Bucky looks down at her, wondering and wary and with his senses just a little bit scrambled. Which is probably why he blurts, “But I don’t need luck _now_.”

Her expression goes rigid with humiliated pride. “Oh, well, then—”

_Idiot!_ Bucky grabs her hand before she can step away, and tugs her back in. “I’ll still take the kiss, though...” And he lowers his mouth to hers and hopes she’s not going to punch him...

If she is, she’s holding off until after the kiss – all sweet and hungry against him, with a knowingness to her mouth, and Bucky hasn’t kissed a girl in—God, he doesn’t even know how long it’s been!

With Maria kissing him, he doesn’t much care.

 


End file.
